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Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Cambodia - For Rich CPP Leaders, Reform Not So Vital

Prime Minister Hun Sen during a medical
examination in Singapore late last month, in a photograph posted to his
Facebook page

The
health care system is so unreliable that Prime Minister Hun Sen, like any
Cambodian with money, flies abroad for health check-ups. The country’s
education system is so weak that student-teacher ratios are as high as 50 to 1
in some provincial primary schools.

Universities
are no better, with employers saying recent graduates are so poorly educated
they must train them from scratch. Those who are hired are the lucky ones, with
hundreds of thousands of young people unable to find any work.

At least
1 million Cambodians have crossed the border to find work as manual laborers in
Thailand—despite frequent reports of mistreatment—because that country’s least
desirable jobs at least give them a way to support their families.

Phnom
Penh, the country’s commercial hub, turns into a flooded concrete swamp for
hours when rain hits. Highways are forever being rebuilt—when one is finished,
another becomes impassable due to construction cost-cutting.

No matter
where you look, basic services are in shambles. Yet Mr. Hun Sen’s government,
which has prided itself on the “development” it has delivered over 37 years in
power, has spent much of this year using its resources to hound and arrest opposition
officials and critics.

Since
opposition leader Sam Rainsy last year fled the country for fear of arrest, and
his deputy, Kem Sokha, locked himself inside the CNRP’s headquarters for the
same reason, the ruling party seems to have decided it would be easier to
destroy its foes than fix festering problems.

“It’s not
because their hands are tied,” said Ou Virak, director of the Future Forum
public policy think tank. “They have a lot of power, they have a lot of money
and they have better human resources than the opposition. But the problem is
that they cannot come up with a comprehensive strategy to reform.”

“In many
ways, it points to a frustrated and confused CPP, because they seem not to know
what to do,” he said.

Yet it is
unsurprising that the issues facing Cambodia, which continue to push the
country further behind its neighbors, seem to go perpetually unresolved, with
CPP leaders often denying they even exist.

Mr. Hun
Sen, who last week traveled to Singapore for a health check, has hit back hard
against criticism of the health care sector, defending local doctors earlier
this year after medical experts said that nothing short of a “revolution” was
needed.

“They
looked down on our roughly 20,000 health officials and physicians until some
appealed for a physician revolution,” Mr. Hun Sen said of critics during a
speech in March. “The majority of our physicians are very ethical,
professionally responsible and make sacrifices to save people’s lives.”

The
speech did not convince those who had called for a health care overhaul.

“While he
says there are only small numbers [of bad doctors], the people who have
experienced this say there are plenty,” Mengly Quach, a prominent U.S.-educated
medical doctor and businessman, said after the speech.

Mr. Hun
Sen’s real views on the country’s health care system have been made evident by
his choice not to use it, said Cham Bunthet, an official with the Grassroots
Democracy Party.

Even
Cambodia’s education system has few issues in Mr. Hun Sen’s estimation. When
Mr. Rainsy said last year that a local university degree was worthless—with
some graduates working as motorbike-taxi drivers—the premier lashed out.

“Although
these degrees have been looked down upon as valueless degrees, in my eyes, the
degrees I hand out today and have handed out previously are very valuable for
Cambodian children,” Mr. Hun Sen said during a graduation speech in October,
accusing Mr. Rainsy of elitism.

“Do not
pardon [those] who insult you by saying the degrees are worthless,” Mr. Hun Sen
instructed.

However,
Mr. Hun Sen would not be able to count among the “insulted” his own children,
who all enjoyed the privilege of foreign educations. His eldest son, Hun Manet,
went to university in the U.S. and U.K., while his youngest son, Hun Many, a
CPP lawmaker, went to U.S. and Australian universities.

The same
can be said for just about all CPP leaders—or for anyone else fortunate enough
to count themselves among the country’s elite, with the option of paying for
private primary and high schools that keep their children out of state schools.

Education
Minister Hang Chuon Naron, who was appointed as a new “reformist” minister
after the 2013 national election, has been widely praised for his reforms of
the high school exit exam and for raising the salaries of public school
teachers.

However,
some have complained that the harder work needed to improve the overall quality
of public education has still been lacking.

“At the
end of the day, it all boils down to a lack of resources,” said Miguel Chanco,
lead regional analyst at The Economist’s Intelligence Unit.

“For
instance, there are a staggering 45 students for each primary school teacher in
Cambodia—well above the likes of the Philippines (31, 2nd highest in ASEAN) and
Myanmar (28, 3rd highest),” he said in an email. The figures in some provinces
are even worse, by the government’s own admission.

Mr.
Chanco said public spending on education has risen under Mr. Chuon Naron’s
tenure, but still remained far behind the rest of Asean as a proportion of
total public expenditures. And there are few indications that things will
change soon, with the CPP’s priorities elsewhere, he said.

“With the
government clearly focused on largely maintaining power at the next election
cycle in 2017-18, my concern is that Cambodia’s long-term needs (such as on
education) will continue to remain low in policymakers’ list of priorities,” he
added.

“Overall,
the risk of continued government complacency is one that Cambodia cannot
afford.”

With
elections nearing, the preponderance of frustrations about basic services being
aired in coffee shops and on social media should still provide pause for
thought for the ruling party, even if it has been chipping away at the
opposition CNRP with arrests and other looming legal threats.

Council
of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan dismissed the suggestion that the privileged
lives of government leaders isolated them from the problems being faced by the
less fortunate.

“Do you
think it’s fair that I drive a Land Cruiser and another guy drives a motorbike?
Are you a communist or what?” Mr. Siphan asked. “Cambodia cannot afford good
doctors because they were killed by the Khmer Rouge. So what you see is what
you get.”

He said
CPP leaders with money were entitled to use it as they pleased.

“We have
a top class of a few people, and a lower class, and a middle class that is
expanding, and the middle class is where most tax comes from, so we are
patient. We are waiting for the GDP to grow, and then I think the health care
system will be better.”

For many,
patience is wearing thin, said Mr. Virak of the Future Forum.

“I don’t
think Hun Sen has what it takes to take Cambodia to the next level,” Mr. Virak
said. “He has done an incredible job in the past, with ending the Khmer Rouge,
and that kind of politics served them well, but it does not seem to be serving
them anymore.”

The next
phase of progress requires a clear reform agenda to tackle the persistent
problems holding the country back, something Mr. Hun Sen has not provided, he
said.

“There’s
no war or conflicts, and he doesn’t seem to be able to deal with today’s
issues.”